


Laughter is Brightest Where Food is Best

by raiining



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: First Kiss, Get Together, M/M, Thanksgiving
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-27
Updated: 2014-11-27
Packaged: 2018-02-27 06:20:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2682320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiining/pseuds/raiining
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil doesn’t do Thanksgiving so much anymore, not since his mother died, but maybe that’s a tradition he should change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughter is Brightest Where Food is Best

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ralkana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ralkana/gifts).



> This started as a gift fic for Ralkana after she had a hard day, but when I finished it I realized it could turn into a short Thanksgiving story. It took me from Canadian Thanksgiving to American Thanksgiving to finish it, but here it is! Beta'd by the fabulous Ralkana and the wonderful desert_neon. Thank you ladies! Happy Thanksgiving to all you American's out there!
> 
> "Laughter is Brightest Where Food is Best" ~ Irish Proverb

“And then the agent in charge got food poisoning, so all primary _and_ secondary information had to be routed back here for fact-checking before being re-diverted to the field, _plus_ the flight path had been filed incorrectly, so every ten minutes I had the civilian aviation center phoning me, threatening to call in the military, and it was just - ” Phil rubs a hand over his face, “just a shit show.” He sighs. “I’m sorry, Barton. You didn’t come down here to listen to me whine. What can I do for you?”

“No, it’s fine,” Clint says, putting a styrofoam container on Phil’s desk and nudging it his way. “What happened next?”

Phil shrugs and opens the container. He doesn’t even look at what’s inside before he takes the plastic fork Clint’s handed him. “Nothing much. The operation was a cakewalk. Woo did a good job of prepping everything, and Sitwell stepped in to cover my responsibilities here, though he _still_ forgot to forward me the file on Senator Stern that I’ve been asking for for weeks.” He shoves the fork into his mouth, chews, and swallows before the rich, heavenly taste permeates the thick cloud he’s been carrying around all day. “Oh, my god, Clint, what is this?”

Clint looks nervous. “Do you like it? I thought it turned out okay.”

Phil takes another bite and moans around the fork, then realizes his eyelids have fluttered closed and quickly opens them again. “It’s _fantastic._ ” He looks down at the container. “What -” He pauses. “Huh.”

Whatever’s inside looks… gross. Phil can’t even tell what it _is_ , except vaguely brown and, in some places, grey. And yet it tastes _amazing_. There are notes of citrus, something vaguely crunchy, a hint of sweetness, and it’s all held together by the pervasive, unifying richness of _mind-numbingly fantastic_ milk chocolate.

Phil takes another bite and groans. He has a weakness for milk chocolate. “I don’t care. It’s _amazing._ ”

Clint pinks. “Thanks. To be honest, I’m not sure what it is either, I just had this idea and decided to see where I could go with it.” He shrugs. “Thanks for volunteering to be my taste tester.”

“Any time,” Phil promises. He pops another forkful in his mouth, savouring the rich, creamy sensation. He can literally _feel_ the stress melting off his shoulders. “Add me to the email list.”

“Well, it’s mostly, just, you know, you,” Clint says, fidgeting slightly, “and maybe Natasha. She’s in Singapore right now, though.”

Phil hums. “I think she’s due back on the tenth.” He hunts down another forkful. “So you’re enjoying the new apartment, then?”

Clint brightens. “Yeah, it’s great.”

“I know the building,” Phil comments as he scrapes the last of the brown-grey mush from the walls of the container. “I lived there for several years after joining S.H.I.E.L.D. It’s a convenient distance from base, but the kitchens are rather small.”

“It’s a heck of a lot more than I had living on base,” Clint points out, “and besides, it’s New York. What are you going to do?”

Phil puts down the styrofoam container before he can give in to the urge to lick it clean. “If you promise to leave me some leftovers, you’re welcome to cook at my house.”

Clint blinks in honest surprise. “What? Are you serious?”

“One hundred percent,” Phil assures him. “I hardly live in my brownstone anyway - it was my mother’s before she died. The kitchen could use a renovation, but it’s perfectly serviceable, and it’s at least twice as large as yours. Plus, I know for a fact there’d be room for your double-boiler.”

Clint laughs. “Oh, I see how it is. You just want me for my cooking.”

Phil grins. He won’t pretend that seeing Clint's smile isn’t its own reward, but fresh food is always good. “You caught me.”

“Well, sure. I mean, if I ever want to make something and I don’t have the room, maybe I’ll give you a call,” Clint says. “Thanksgiving is coming up, in any case. Do you have any plans?”

Phil shakes his head. “Nothing standing, not since my mother died. Why, did you have something in mind?”

Clint hums. “I’m not sure. I’ve never cooked a proper turkey before.”

“Well then,” Phil says with a smile, “it’s a date. Should we get together at least once - maybe the weekend before - to practice?”

Clint grins back. “Definitely. What do you say to my famous pumpkin pie? I make my own whipped cream and everything.”

Yum. “That,” Phil says, his crappy day completely forgotten, “sounds absolutely perfect, in every way.” He gives in and swirls his thumb around the inside edge of the styrofoam box, licking the last of the taste off his skin. “Can I put in a request for a second helping of this, though?”

“Absolutely,” Clint agrees, his eyes locked on Phil’s thumb. “Definitely. One hundred percent.”

 

*

 

Clint comes over to Phil’s house the next weekend they both have off and practices puttering around his kitchen. It’s both wonderful and tortuous, because the food he makes is absolutely _incredible,_ but having Clint one hundred percent in his space is doing dangerous things to Phil’s self-control. 

He’d thought he’d had this crush buried deep - yes, he’s been attracted to Clint since the day Nick first recruited him into S.H.I.E.L.D., but he’s always been able to distance himself from his feelings. He admires Clint for his perseverance through life’s great disappointments and cannot help but find his humour, sense of style, and, yes, he’ll admit it, his _arms,_ pleasing, but Phil had thought he’d stopped himself from smiling just because Clint was near a long time ago. He’s _sure_ he’d been keeping to his self-set restriction of no-glancing-at-Clint’s-ass-more-than-twice-a-week rule.

The Saturday they spend cooking in Phil’s mother’s kitchen blows that denial out of the window. Before Clint even arrives, Phil is grinning, almost bouncing on his toes, and by the time he leaves, Phil’s sweating.

He’s positive the oven hadn’t been that low to the ground before. Clint had bent over many times to check the contents while they were cooking. _Many times._

Still, he can do this. Yes, he’s spent the last week imagining the perfect round curve of Clint’s ass, but Thanksgiving is tomorrow and Phil _can do this._ He is _not_ going to construct some kind of terrible innuendo in the hopes of making Clint smile. He is _not_ going to grin just because Clint looks over his shoulder and winks at him. He is _not_ going to screw up the mashed potatoes just because Clint is checking on the consistency of the pumpkin pie - again.

Phil rolls over and buries his head in the pillow. He is so screwed.

Thanksgiving morning dawns bright but cool. Phil has managed to not only get the Thursday, Friday, and weekend off, but he’s bribed Jasper into putting him on the ‘no call’ list and has added Clint’s name to it, too. Unless some kind of global emergency springs up, someone else can handle it.

“Phil!” Clint greets, standing on his front porch looking bright and happy and like he belongs. “Good morning! Happy Thanksgiving!”

“Happy Thanksgiving,” Phil returns, trying and failing to keep the answering smile off his face. “Please, come in.”

“Thanks,” Clint says, crossing the threshold and toeing his boots off by the front door. He’s got bags in his hands, loaded with food and what looks like new cookware. “I gave in and bought the larger pot I mentioned last time,” he admits, when he sees that Phil is looking. “There’s nowhere for me to keep it in my apartment, but I was thinking I could maybe leave it here?” He bites his bottom lip and glances at Phil up through his lashes, looking both insanely hot and ridiculously adorable.

“Yes, of course,” Phil says, swallowing against the urge to take Clint’s face in his hands and kiss that look right off of him. “I’ve got more than enough space in the cupboards.”

Clint drops the puppydog act and laughs, making his way to the kitchen. He puts the bags on the floor and starts lifting out food and crockery, taking ownership of the space in a way Phil’s never seen him do outside of sniper nests before. “You definitely do, boss,” he says. “I’ve never seen a kitchen more criminally wasted in my life.”

Phil narrows his eyes. “You sound like my mother. She was always after me to learn how to cook.”

Clint pauses in the act of dumping the potatoes in the sink. He looks up and meets Phil’s eyes. “I wish I could have met her.”

Phil feels the familiar lump settle in the back of his throat. He wishes that, too. “You would have liked her,” he says, once he’s swallowed the emotion down, “and she would have _adored_ you.”

Clint grins, bright and dazzling again. “Why? Because of my fantastic skills?” He juts out a hip.

Phil laughs. “Yes, but also because you’re young and happy and you follow direction well.” _And you make me smile,_ Phil adds, in the privacy of his own thoughts. _She would have been setting us up before the first fork left the table._

“I bet she would have taught me all the Coulson Family recipes,” Clint says, shooting Phil a softer smile before turning back to the potatoes. 

“Probably,” Phil admits. “There were a few, but I hardly even remember them now.” He glances around the kitchen. “She wrote them down in a red recipe book that’s probably hidden around here somewhere. I’ll have to find it one of these days and let you have a crack at it.”

Clint looks over his shoulder at him. “I’d like that,” he says honestly. He lifts a potato. “Now come over here and peel these, wash them, and then cook them like we did last week. I’ll start on the turkey. I pre-cooked it last night, so it won’t take us forever, but I want to finish dressing it and then roast it again. There’s a trick I read online for keeping the moisture in, so I’m hoping it turns out less dry than last time.”

Phil takes the potato and retrieves the skin peeler. “Aye, aye, captain.”

Clint laughs. “Avast, you scallywag. Shape up, or I’ll have you walk the plank!”

Phil chuckles. “Good thing Nick’s not here to see this.”

Clint grins. “Definitely. We’d be on the Christmas overnight call list, for sure. Pirates aren’t quite right for Thanksgiving, anyway. Though, in a fight, who do you think would win? Pirates or pilgrims?”

“The Native Americans, of course,” Phil argues, finishing his first potato and reaching into the sink for another. “They had bows and arrows.”

“True,” Clint agrees, pointing his turkey baster at Phil, “but to play devil’s advocate, the pirates had cannons. That has to count for something.”

“Maybe,” Phil allows, “but - ” He launches into an argument involving inland warfare and the difficulties of moving ship-based cannons on land.

The bantering takes them all the way through dinner preparation. Phil only loses the flow of conversation a few times, mostly when Clint bends over to check the turkey, and once when there’s an incident with the pumpkin pie. Phil doesn’t think anyone could blame him, though, because not only had Clint stayed leaning over with his ass in the air for a full _three minutes_ \- Phil had counted - but he’d also leaned over Phil’s shoulder, stuck his finger in the cream Phil had been whipping up, and then _licked it off his knuckle._

That should have been illegal.

By the time they sit down to dinner, Phil’s half-hard in his pants and his face hurts from smiling. “This looks fabulous,” he says, because it does, and the smell is driving him to distraction. The way Clint’s face lights up at the praise does nothing to ease Phil’s predicament. 

“I’m glad to hear that,” Clint says. He looks over at Phil. The dining room is large - Phil had dusted it yesterday in preparation for the meal because he absolutely never comes in here - and the table seats twelve. To avoid having to raise their voices to be heard, they’d decided to sit together in the middle, side-by-side instead of across from each other. “This is exactly what I wanted to cook today, a proper Thanksgiving, even though it’s just us to enjoy it.”

“Maybe next year we can invite some friends,” Phil offers. Once word gets out that Clint will be cooking, they’ll have to bar the door to avoid a stampede.

“That’d be nice,” Clint agrees with a grin, nudging Phil’s foot under the table, “but I didn’t mean to imply that it wasn’t good to be here with you. Just with you.” His cheeks glow faintly pink. “This is good, too. I mean, it’s more than good.”

“Yeah?” Phil asks, his heart rate picking up. He wants to believe that Clint feels the same way he does, but he doesn’t dare, because what if he’s wrong? What if it’s just wishful thinking and not - not -

“There’s a tradition we used to have, back when I was a kid,” Phil finds himself saying, taking a chance, “when my dad was still alive. Mom and I kept it up after he died.”

Clint cocks his head and looks over at him. “What was that?”

Phil’s pulse thunders in his throat. “Kiss the chef.”

Clint blinks, looking shocked, before he grins. “ _Really?_ ”

Phil nods. “Of course, when it was Dad and Mom, it was less chaste than it was after, but - ”

Clint interrupts him with a laugh. “No, you don’t say?”

Phil blushes. “Shut up.” He realises he’d been leaning forward, and he pulls back. “I - ”

“Hey, no,” Clint says, scooting over and hooking his fingers into the collar of Phil’s shirt. “Don’t let my big mouth ruin our moment.”

Phil rolls his lips to hide a smile. “We were having a moment?”

Clint nods, his face serious, even though his eyes are dancing. “We were, we totally were, you were going to kiss me.”

Phil can’t stop the smile from breaking out on his face. “I was.” 

He looks at Clint, noting how his pupils have dilated and his breath has hitched, and then leans forward. Just when they’re about to kiss, though, Phil decides that fair’s fair, and brushes a chaste kiss along Clint's cheek instead of his lips. “There.”

“Aww, no,” Clint protests, face falling. “I - ”

Phil laughs, turns fully in his chair to face Clint, and pulls him forward so their lips brush. “No?”

“Definitely not,” Clint says, obviously meaning to say it firmly, even if it comes out a little hushed. “I want - ”

Phil presses a close-mouthed kiss to Clint’s lips, but doesn’t pull back after he’s done. Their breath mingles in the air in front of them. “Want what?”

Clint’s fingers tighten in Phil’s shirt. “You.” 

He tugs and Phil goes, groaning when Clint opens his mouth and invites Phil inside. Their tongues meet in a brief struggle, warring for dominance, before Clint shivers and surrenders, letting his lips fall completely open, his mouth warm and pliant under Phil’s.

Phil’s hands come up to frame Clint’s face and he holds him there while Phil learns every inch of his mouth. He pulls back only once they’re both red and panting, and looks belatedly at the cooling food. “What about dinner?”

Clint tugs him forward again. “It’ll keep,” he says, his voice husky, and slides his hands around Phil’s sides. “Forget about it and kiss me again.”

Phil does.

 

 

~ The End


End file.
